


#speedsterproblems

by Limnaia



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Self-Insert, The speed force has Opinions, barry allen needs to get laid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:17:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limnaia/pseuds/Limnaia
Summary: 'Some days, I want to make myself an 'I travelled through time to save my best mate from lethal blue balls and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ shirt.'Let's face it, in Season One, Barry Allen needed to get laid. Enter our noble OMC, who is totally willing to jump on that grenade for the good of the whole city, in the spirit of self sacrifice and public service and nothing at all to do with Barry being cute and having an exceptional backside. Honest, officer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if I'm gonna carry this on, or how I'm going to if I do. Rating is pre emptive, and depends on whether I have the nerve to upload the smut I've got sitting on my hard drive. Will update tags etc as and when they become relevant. Don't judge too harshly, please.
> 
> Also, if you'd like a soundtrack to be listening to, this chapter's theme song is Come Out And Play by the Offspring.

Some days, I want to make myself an 'I travelled through time to save my best mate from lethal blue balls and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ shirt. Today was one of those days. Watching Barry pace the STAR Labs cortex was driving me crazy.

"Barry, would you chill? Please?”

He looked at me like I’d just suggested skinning the Andrex puppy. I decided discretion was the better part of valour and shut my mouth. The fastest grump alive, ladies and gentlemen. It didn’t help that I also had a hangover. 

This skinny grouch before me would, one day, be legendary, as well as one of my best friends. The Flash had taught me most of what I knew about being a speedster. I was profoundly grateful to him. He was the first speedster, courtesy of a lightning strike and some experimental physics gone terribly wrong. He wasn’t the only one. But my speed had come from stolen alien nanotech, twenty years from now. He’d taken me under his wing. Or he was going to. One day.

When he'd confided to me he'd made.. shall we say, one or two inadvisable decisions in the early years of having his powers? I’d wondered why. He’d flushed as red as his suit. Me, being a tenacious jerk, hadn’t let it go.

 

_Star Labs, Central City, 2036_  

_I grinned as I followed him through the corridors of STAR Labs._

_“Nah, come on, Red. There’s no way I’m dropping this. What in god’s name could make you so embarassed?”_

_Barry scratched the back of his head in the way he did when he was embarrassed. He really needed to get a handle on his tells. He never was a good liar._

_“It’s nothing. We just didn’t know a lot about speedster metabolisms back then. We were working it out through trial and error.”_

_“Since when does needing 20,000 calories a day affect your judgement?”_

_He looked even more awkward as we entered the cortex, Cisco catching the tail end of my words._

_“Oh, are we telling Jamie about how sex deprived speedsters make bad decisions, again?”_

_When I finished crying with laughter, that was when the explanations began._

 

Turns out, this was thanks to a little known facet of the speed force: namely the effect it had on a speedster's libido. In addition to the lack of refractory period, and the ability to vibrate on command, speedsters also had a much higher sex drive than usual. And in the same way that people don’t think straight when they’re half blinded by lust, a speedster who doesn’t stay on top of their newly demanding sex life tends to get a little more impulsive. And with literal lightning in our veins, we’re a tad more impulsive than most anyway. But, if the speed force builds up… well. We can kinda combust.. and… well, sex is another way to get excess speed out of our systems. Not all of us have a fancy treadmill.

By my time, this was common knowledge for baby speedsters, and if a fellow speedster came and told you they needed a hand uh- 'unwinding’ shall we say? It didn't matter who they were, who you were or what kind of romantic or sexual entanglements either of you had, you helped. It was even more critical in the early years when accidental vibration mid-shag with the wrong person could out you as a meta. It was an unspoken rule. After all, we were all one in the speed force, right? What's a bit of sex between friends? Or hell, even archenemies. Speed-bros before criminal orientation, or hell any other kind of orientation for that matter. Nothing like the possibility of actual death to bring circumstantial bisexuality out of someone. 

So I’d travelled through time for one very noble reason: to get Barry Allen laid. lt had been touch and go back then, he told me. He was the only speedster, as far as he knew. The entirety of the speed force could easily flood his system, and he didn't know the consequences of ignoring that particular conundrum. I was never one to let a friend suffer.

Future Barry had even helped me, muttering something about needing a friend who got it back then, and something ominous about me maybe finding what I needed too. He'd videoed himself: a quick message introducing me to his past self and I'd gone on a jaunt through the time stream, intending to find 2016 Barry and at the very least be his wingman, so that his dumb stubborn horny backside didn’t burn up from the inside out. A truly civic minded gesture, if I do say so myself. Public service, practically. 

None of which was helping right now, as Barry flipped his nut about my former job. The trouble was, in my inexperience, I had arrived two years too early. So I did what any red blooded nerd boy would do: I'd gotten a job in the meantime, and been perfecting a hilarious quip for my big entrance. (Given the circumstances. I thought 'Cum with me if you want to live' was a stroke of genius. Only Cisco had laughed. Team Flash is a tough crowd.)  That had been three weeks ago, and now my platonic fuckbuddy-to-be was grousing at me because he didn't approve of either that job, or my conduct the previous night. If he kept yelling, I was considering letting him fucking combust. Timeline be damned.

“You know what, Barry, it is too early in the damn morning for you to be this mad at me. I’m gonna go grab myself a Big Belly breakfast and you can try and untwist your knickers, okay, mate?” I did not leave with my super speed. I staggered out like any non-superpowered self respecting drunk.

Last night, I'd watched the news and seen that a friend of mine from Gotham was in town briefly. We'd gone out for a drink. No big deal, right? Trouble was, said friend was in town for a second opinion on her competency to stand trial assessment at the city’s secure psychiatric ward and shouldn't really have left the premises. Said friend was also Harley Quinn, former girlfriend of the Joker, all around badass, and my drinking buddy of choice.

Barry and the rest of Team Flash had known I used to live in Gotham. What they had not known (until this morning) was that the actual Joker was in my speed dial under the moniker "Boss Man”. I'd been his chief enforcer for most of the time I was waiting for the particle accelerator explosion. Turns out you don't have to be crazy to run with the Clown Prince of Crime, though as those pithy mugs say, it definitely helps.

As I very gingerly nibbled my burger, I idly considered the risk/reward value of setting up a twitter handle under my superhero name.

‘Travelled through time to get best mate laid. Suddenly I’m the bad guy for a little bit of gang violence. #speedsterproblems’

‘Making up for crazy metabolism by shotgunning bottle of tequila instead of shot. #speedsterproblems’’

‘Never ever having a good excuse to be late to anything. #speedsterproblems’

In my defence, I was a British guy on a foreign continent, twenty years older than I ought to be, with no ID. It wasn’t like I could easily get a legal job. I'd gone to Gotham because the city is infamous for corruption. Where else would an illegal immigrant lose themselves in the crowd? I’d also found the biggest kid on the playground to get in good with. Who was scarier in the whole of Gotham than the Joker? No one, that's who. There were pragmatic reasons for what I’d done. Besides, despite what everyone said, Joker was a good boss. Most of the time. Better him than Two Face, for pity’s sake.

As a result, Harley and I were buddies. A few months back, she'd dumped him, for reasons that were simultaneously self evident and none of my goddamn business. She’d vanished. Dropped off the face of the earth, as far as I could tell. 

And me? I'd suddenly found Joker was… different. I'd always found him.. well, hilarious. Out of nowhere, he was just 'another textbook psychopath’ to borrow Harley's assessment. I’d never believed the muttered stories among the more superstitious henchpeople that said the Joker wasn't one guy, but an idea instead - and that any of us could become him with the right push. I’d thought they were as nuts as he was when they said that the Joker had died half a dozen times, and all that happened was a few weeks later, some other schmuck had a psychotic break and put on the suit, carrying on where the recently deceased Joker had left off.

That, one particularly paranoid clown had informed me, was why he was so emphatic about his heavy make up. It distracted from the fact that he was different men underneath it. I’d laughed. It sounded far fetched, even for Gotham. But when I came to work one night and found my Boss had a different physique under the suit, brand new scars and tattoos, but carried on a conversation with me that he’d started last time we’d spoken? That he remembered in perfect detail despite the fact that this body he was inhabiting had emphatically _not been present?_ Well, that was when I started believing in monsters.

I'd also quit.

My Boss wasn’t my Boss anymore. (But he was? I was trying not to think too hard about it.) Then I’d just left Gotham. Too loyal to hook up with one of the other big players in Gotham, who had known me as the Clown’s attack dog, but apparently not loyal enough to cope with this bizarre body swap that had left a stranger wearing the Boss’ face. Time to cut my losses. Besides, no one really knew me outside of Gotham.

I'd come to Central City. It was close enough to the right time, I’d now got decent enough fake ID that I could just get a regular job, and provided I didn't break out my old make up, no one had ever recognised me in regular clothes. I figured unless they saw the gang tattoos and recognised them, I’d be fine. I'd made contact with Barry, handed off the ‘I am you in the future’ message and all was going swimmingly.

Then I was Harley on the TV. Without thinking, I’d shot off a text to the last burner she’d had, knowing that thanks to some of Calculator’s wizardry for the Legion of Doom, it’d get auto forwarded to her current phone. Perks of being a member in good standing. (Thinking about it, I probably shouldn’t mention that to Team Flash either. Maybe hide the photos from the last Legion Yule party.)

 

_Lookin good on the evening news Dr. Ex-Boss, ma’am. Didn't know you were in town. I’d have put the flags out. How's the nuthouse treating you?_

_Bored. Wanna go play?_

_There's a good bar downtown. You seem kinda tied up though._

_Please. ;) [bomb emoji]_

 

Hey, I didn't break her out. I sent a text message. Apparently that's ‘not the point’ or something. It wasn't even like we’d done anything bad. We’d drunk an unspecified amount of tequila that I could no longer recall, danced a bit, and okay, maybe one measly drunk got his wrists broken. But he was a creep and got handsy with the Boss Lady. So what if he'll never masturbate again without it hurting like fuck? It's practically civic minded of her in my book. You don't mess with a medically trained violent madwoman. Hell, she’d even waltzed back in the front door of the (frantic, locked down) secure hospital when we were done, explaining she’d ‘just taken a walk around the block for some fresh air, boys, relax’ and to maybe call off the search party. Hell, we didn't even steal anything. We were being upstanding citizens. 

And yet, people were telling me they were upset with me. Loudly. I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such cruel and unusual punishment. This whole ‘turning over a new leaf’ shit wasn't as fun as I'd been led to believe.

I sighed and screwed up the burger wrappings. Pulled out my phone and texted Barry.

  _You chilled out enough to hear my explanation, yet? I’m at the Big Belly on seventh._

Lightning zoomed past the front door, before Barry walked around the corner. He spotted me curled up in the corner with a milkshake, wearing last night’s clothes and sunglasses at 9am, looking like the dictionary definition of a hot mess. He looked briefly sheepish as he sat down. 

“Joe called. I didn’t believe you when you said that you just had a few drinks, but apparently CCPD confirm it. Also, some guy who went to hospital and said that the ‘crazy clown lady’ broke his wrist is apparently the guy we’ve been looking for in connection to those indecent exposure cases in the park, so, I suppose you both may actually have _reduced_ the city’s crime? At least last night, anyway.”

“That sounds suspiciously like an apology, Allen,” I commented.

“How did you even manage to get drunk anyway? With a metabolism like ours? Caitlin and Cisco are brewing new super strength alcohol in a bid to get me buzzed with no damn success.”

“There are two methods, young grasshopper. The first is the route Cisco and Caitlin are working on - booze strong enough to still affect a speedster. The second is the brute force approach.”

His eyes widen as he considers what I’m on about.

“I drank a full bottle of tequila on an empty stomach for every shot Harley had. I drank several bars out of their tequila. I hate tequila by the way, so I’ve no damn tolerance for the stuff. There’s method to my madness.”

“How many bottles did you drink?”

“Lost count after the tenth.”

He’s shaking his head and trying not to grin at my dedication to getting hammered. For a moment, I think I’m in the clear.

“Speaking of mad plans, we should probably talk about your time in Gotham. Like, are you wanted for any crimes? Pretty sure Joe won’t let it go if he finds out.”

Balls. Maybe not.

“Caffeine first, then serious conversations. Race you to Jitters?”

“Should you be running in your state?”

“Pretty sure the hangover’s evaporating as we speak, but I’m still sleep deprived.”

We walk out the burger place normally, then round the corner. A split second later, twin bolts of lightning whoosh through the streets, and I think that impending conversation of doom about my criminal past aside, I’m probably going to like it here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our hero talks destiny and reveals some of his deeply illegal past.
> 
> This chapter's theme song is I Been Gone A Long Time by Every Time I Die.

We skid to a halt somewhere in the vicinity of Jitters and walk in like regular human beings, beyond the ridiculous grins on both our faces. The way it feels to run like this is never, ever going to get old. Barry’s face is just beaming. He looks carefree. Future-Barry always looked a little haunted. Part of my mind wonders quietly what the hell happened to him to bring about that change. Here’s hoping I can change things. Preferably for the better.

“I completely won,” I announce, breaking my train of thought emphatically before I get maudlin. “Loser buys the winner a doughnut.”

“By like, half a second. And a doughnut? Really?”

I nod emphatically. “Speedster code of honour. All races that aren't life or death are for pastries. I don't make the rules, Allen.”

“Funny how new addenda to this code keep popping up whenever you want your sweet tooth indulging.” He gives me his best ‘I do not buy your shit for one second’ look. It's good. Not least because he learned it from Iris.

“Look, future you wrote it. It isn't my fault the first rule of Speedster Club is ‘we race for baked goods’.”

“It isn't ‘you do not talk about Speedster Club’?”

“Joe found out what you could do within 24 hours of you finding out, Barry. If that was a rule, you’d be screwed.”

“...Alright, that's fair.”

He acquires himself some coffee and the Doughnuts of the Subjugated, I get myself an obscenely caffeinated energy drink, and we decide to walk and talk. I crack the can open and take a sip, grinning to myself. It’s like manna from heaven. 

“Alright, so spill. Last two years- what happened.”

“For a start, I was never caught. The GCPD knew I existed, but they never had any evidence.”

He side eyes me a moment.

“How? Joker is not renowned for his subtlety.”

“True. But I am. And J is nothing if not theatrical. He appreciates the value of a good threat as much as anyone. I was the threat. Most of my work was intimidation.”

“What kind of intimidation?”

“Say, hypothetically, you’d done some business with the Joker, and not paid him in time.”

Barry winces. “Bad idea.”

“And say hypothetically, you came into your place of business one day to find that the security cameras in your vault, the most secure place in the building, inexplicably had five minutes of someone in clown makeup appearing suddenly, with no trace of how, staring silently down the lens of the camera for a minute, and vanishing the way they came. Say you can find no trace at all of how they got in or out of the most secure place you know. Would that intimidate you?”

“It's a subtle threat.”

“It's why it worked. No one expected it from J. Everyone freaks out, because it's so far from what they expect, and because suddenly they realise they aren't untouchable. Plus, you're playing on the fact that clowns are creepy, and the clown paint? Nobody actually recognises your face without it. You could be anyone. Their lawyer, their barista, their sister in law… it works.”

Barry actually looks like he's a little ill at the realisation that the Joker could be walking past us as we speak and we’d likely have no idea. We’re walking vaguely in the direction of STAR Labs. I'm hoping there won't be too much of the Spanish Inquisition from the rest of Team Flash when we get there. Joe had already nearly shot me when I ran in front of him the first time. Not that I blamed him. I’d be jittery too, in his shoes.

“How did you end up in Gotham, anyway?”

“Time travel is more an art than a science. And I’ve never done a jump this big before. So I was early. I needed to survive in the meantime. Gotham’s good in the not-very-legal employment stakes.”

“Yeah, but there's got to be other jobs that aren't working for the actual craziest man in the city.”

I wince. I’d been hoping to avoid that part of the conversation.

“What do you know about the speed force, Barry?”

“About the what now?”

I take a deep breath. Time to explain Superpowers Mysticism and Metaphysics 101 to a scientist.

“The lightning when you run. Where’s it come from?”

“Uh..” he looks perplexed. “Me?”

I nod. “And what is it?”

“...lightning?”

“It's called the speed force. It's where your powers come from. And mine. It’s in your body, streams out when you run. Builds up when you don't and makes you twitchy at best and exploded at worst. You’ll recall the conversation we had when I got here about the other big tenet of the Unofficial Speedster Code?”

He blushes. He's a grown man and he blushes from me referring to casual ‘help a buddy use up some excess speed force’ sex. Present-day-Barry is the walking embodiment of the reason why we have this dann rule in the first place. He probably would let himself die before he said to someone ‘hey I need to burn off some excess energy, wanna find a quiet corner and have a platonic life saving fuck?’ He’s gonna freak when he realises he vibrates when he's turned on. I half hope I get to see his face.

“..yeah. Yeah. I remember. Trust me.”

“So, that's the speed force. But it's more than that. It's also a place that you can go, because we go there when we die and sentient, because it can get mad at us for being dicks and simultaneously lives entwined with our bodies on a cellular level and out there in the cosmos holding the fabric of the multiverse together, while also possibly being time itself.”

He just stares at me.

“I know. It breaks the brain.”

“...I'm just waiting for you to say ‘I am your father, Luke’.”

“If I feel the overwhelming urge to try and procreate with any of your ancestors, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”

He sprays a mouthful of coffee at that, half giggling. I think I broke him. Ooops. Bet the speed force seems a little more palatable to think about in comparison, though. He takes a minute to stop and compose himself before replying.

“This is a lot to take in. I'm still getting used to the idea of time travel being real, and you're being Obi-Wan levels of vague right now.”

I snort. “Just be glad I'm not making you give me a piggyback while we have this conversation, my young padawan.”

“Might be a little awkward at work. ‘Hi Captain! Yeah, I'm carrying a known criminal on my back everywhere I go because he's secretly training me in the ways of the speed Jedi and also making sure I don't accidentally spontaneously combust from lack of sex’.”

“David Singh is a well respected queer man of many years good standing in the community. He's seen weirder in his day.”

“God, probably. Dammit, sorry, I keep interrupting. Go on. Speed force.”

We’re walking into the labs by this point.

“The speed force is what makes time travel possible. But it also kinda self regulates. We couldn't just nip back to 1930s Berlin to go kill Hitler. History wants to happen. Someone else would take his place and the war would happen anyway. You can't just time travel for every little thing. The speed force won't let you.”

“So wait, how come you managed to come here, now?”

He throws his empty coffee cup into a trashcan as we pass and stretches his gangly limbs up over his head. For a second, there's a bit of skin and the outline of a hipbone visible under the hem of his shirt.

That's all it takes. I feel the speed force crawl up my spine, and I get a sense memory of something that hasn't happened yet. I suddenly distinctly know the sensation of sinking my teeth into that hipbone, and the accompanying flare of desire that goes with it. The speed force’s way of letting me know what it wants from me. I roll my shoulders, breathing through the excess lightning in my limbs.

As suddenly as it happened, it's gone again. I cast my mind back to remember what we were talking about.

“It let me. The speed force wants me here, for some reason.”

“You okay? You spaced for a second.”

“Yeah. There's these.. gut feelings you get when you're pondering things the speed force wants. Just had one.”

“About what?”

_Fucking you into next week._

“Dunno. It doesn't always specify. It's like a flashing neon light saying ‘destiny: this way’. Doesn't mean you know how, or when, or why, or even what to do about it.”

I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans to hide my anxious fidgeting. It feels vulnerable to admit some of this aloud. I lean against the wall to finish the conversation before we go back to the cortex and acquire an audience.

“It's how I knew I had to make the trip back- the sudden and queasy feeling of fate catching up to me. I told future-you, and you were helping me get ready for the trip the next day.”

Barry’s eyes widen at that.

“Did you know anything else?”

“Not a damn thing. When I got here early, I freaked, but then I felt it when I saw a news report about Joker. I knew that was why I was here early.”

I don't elaborate that it was an overwhelming sense of recognition when I saw that grin- an instinctive and automatic awareness that just as Joker’s gang was his property, now that I’d seen him, so was I. _His,_ completely, whether I wanted it or not. It had terrified me then. It scared me now. I’d been half glad when the compulsion to be around him went away. He was.. something uncanny. Definitely not a tame lion.

“I felt like I was gonna vibrate out my skin. Then, for two years straight, the sense that even if I’d said ‘fuck this’ and split, if he’d whistled, I’d… have gone running, and done it gladly. I didn't exactly.. uh, have a choice in the matter. Then one day I woke up and it was gone. I could leave.”

I glance up from the toes of my sneakers, which had become unexpectedly riveting over the course of my explanation. Barry looks horrified. Utterly horrified. And angry.

“Do you- is that what you feel like being around me, now?”

_Oh._

“No, not a bit. It's different. I know the speed force wants me here, but beyond that, it's all my call. Nowhere near the same. J was.. a special case, I think.”

I swallow.

“You know, I had my own life before that exobyte injected my nervous system with the speed force.”

I'm grinning as I say it, but there's no mirth in it, we both know I'm not joking and neither of us finds it funny. The silence stretches out for a few moments. Not awkward, just reflective. Then I'm jerked from my brooding by a hand on my shoulder, as Barry comes in for a hug. I smile, genuinely this time.

“This is bullshit and you shouldn't have to deal with it,” he says, seemingly angry on my behalf. I chuckle.

“Yeah, but I am. I'm alright, skinnybutt. You don't need to worry about me.”

“Uh huh.”

He clearly thinks I'm talking shit, but lets go.

“I see now where your dedication to getting drunk comes from.”

“I’ll have you know I wasn't merely drunk, sir. I was full on shitfaced, thank you very much.”

He chuckles a bit at that.

“Bar?”

“Yeah?”

“I'd appreciate it if this wasn't public knowledge. Tell people I was in Gotham, tell them who I was working for if you want, bit keep the whole ‘the speed force is strong with you’ stuff between us, please?”

He nods.

“You said mostly intimidation. What else?”

“Turf scuffles, the odd robbery. Occasional disposal of evidence.”

“Did you.. kill anyone?”

“In self defence? Or murder?”

“Murder.”

I swallowed.

“One. Ever hear of a serial killer called Victor Zsasz?”

He shakes his head, looking tense.

“Well, neither have 90% of the people who would have been his victims. I couldn't let that happen, not when I could stop it. I don't think anyone who’s seen pictures of a crime scene he caused wouldn't fault me.”

He doesn't look convinced. I shrug.

“Look him up. See what you think of my decision when you see what he did before I found him.”

And on that bombshell, I leave. Barry needs space, and I need sleep.

 

Three days later, I get a text from him asking if I'm coming into the lab tomorrow. I take that to mean he's made his peace, at least for now. True to his word, Barry doesn't tell the others about the speed force and it’s _emphatic_ suggestions.

He tells Dr. Wells _something_ , though. I can see it in the quiet man’s eyes. I don't know what it is, but the man is clearly fighting back a curled lip every time he looks at me. Not that anyone else picks up on it. Happily, my poker face is as good as Wells’, so if we’re both suddenly members of the mutual loathing club, no one comments. And if one day, I take my hoodie off in the cortex and I notice his eyes widen in recognition at the tattoo on my arm?

Well, then the only explanation would be that Dr. Harrison Wells, who has apparently never been to Gotham in his life, had recognised the Joker’s gang’s tattoos.

_A club for your first beating, a diamond for your first robbery, a spade for your first corpse and a heart for earning the Boss’s trust._

More than that, that he’d understood them. His gaze had lingered on the heart. Only two people in Joker’s gang had earned that privilege. I was used to it getting stared at. But outsiders didn't know that particular piece of information. So, how did Wells?

I wasn't sure. So I kept my mouth shut.


End file.
